The invention relates to a belt buckle for a vehicle seat belt.
A belt buckle is configured to receive and to lock a plug-in tongue arranged on a vehicle seat belt so as to prevent the plug-in tongue from being withdrawn from the belt buckle. For this purpose, the belt buckle includes a locking element adapted to interact with a recess within the plug-in tongue and thus locking the plug-in tongue inside the belt buckle. For transferring the locking element from a home position in which the plug-in tongue is not inserted to a locking position in which the plug-in tongue is inserted and locked, a locking mechanism being triggered by the plug-in tongue during insertion is provided. During insertion the plug-in tongue enters into contact with an ejection element disposed in the belt buckle and displaces the ejection element inside the belt buckle. The plug-in tongue is guided inside the belt buckle by the ejection element.
In the state of the art the ejection element typically includes activating springs triggering the locking mechanism when the plug-in tongue is inserted and accordingly the ejection element is displaced. Hence the locking element is released inside the casing and is displaced so that it engages in the recess of the plug-in tongue so as to inhibit the latter.
For releasing the plug-in tongue a release push-button is pressed. In this way the locking element is reset into the home position again, thus causing the plug-in tongue to be released again. Then the latter will be ejected from the belt buckle via the ejection element.
In the known belt buckles it has turned out to be a drawback that a clicking noise of the activating springs and a locking noise of definitely metallic nature will occur by the triggering of the locking mechanism via the activating springs and the locking by the locking element.